With special guest Anna Rylander Eklund

When we first discussed the works of Mary Parker Follett back in 2016 (Episode 5), she was relatively little known compared to Taylor, Fayol, and Maslow. We covered one speech, “The Giving of Orders,” from a collection of her works titled Dynamic Administration. The discussion largely focused on comparing her main idea, what she called “Law of the Situation” where the context of an order determined its acceptability and feasibility to that of scientific management that pursued the “one best way” somewhat independent of the situation. There was some unpacking to do as the podcasters wrested with some basic questions such as what is a situation and who determines it? Does Follett’s approach challenge the notion of hierarchy? How would one use these ideas in practice?

Six years later, interest in Follett’s work has grown, as has interest in design thinking, the contingency approach, and pragmatism. Perhaps this was spurred by the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that required firms to resort to tailored, distributed ways of getting work done. Overall, the response was very pragmatic, the evolving situation demanded learning through experience, experimentation, and collaboration to overcome the fears, tensions, uncertainty, and conflict that the pandemic wrought.

In addition, Follett was discussed to a great extent during our conversation on Louis Brandeis’ “Business as a Profession” in Episode 84, as she herself spoke extensively on the topic.

We decided that it was time to go back and give Follett an updated and more thorough treatment. In this episode, we revisit Dynamic Administration with a look at the first five chapters as a whole – focusing on Chapter 1 (“Constuctive Conflict”), Chapter 3 (“Business as an Integrative Unity”), Chapter 4 (“Power”), and Chapter 5 (“How Must Business Management Develop in order to Possess the Essentials of a Profession”) that introduced Follett’s conception of professionalizing business.

These chapters, along with “The Giving of Orders,” provide a complete thought about how firms should leverage the competing interests of managers and workers or their unions to find common ground. The traditional approach to conflict was for each side to adopt a fighting stance and try to dominate the other – in other words, to exercise power-over the opponent which only leads to more conflict. Instead, firms that follow the law of the situation are more likely to collaborate and integrate their views and interests. Power-with emerges from this integration and is more enduring. Conflict is thus reduced.

We welcome Anna Rylander Eklund from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Anna has studied Follett and other pragmatists and has tremendous insights to her work.

Read with us:

Metcalf, H. C., & Urwick, L. (1943). Dynamic administration: The collected papers of Mary Parker Follett. Harper Brothers. Chapters 1, 3-5.

To Learn More:

Rylander Eklund, A. & Simpson, B. 2020. The duality of design(ing) successful projects. Project Management Journal, 51(1), 11–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/8756972819888117

Other Talking About Organizations Podcast episodes referenced:

Episode 5. The Law of the Situaton — Mary Parker Follett

Episode 84. Business as a Profession — Louis Brandeis

Title Image Credit: “A member of the United Financial Employees, on strike in 1948, heckling a businessman who crossed the picket line, 1948 – NARA,” Wikimedia Commons, public domain